This is a long one.
Recapitulative Play is one of the sixteen ‘play types’, defined by British Playworker Bob Hughes in his 2002 Taxonomy of Play Types
Since the sixteen Play Types were first presented in 2002 , they have often been reproduced with just fifteen listed rather than sixteen, with Recapitulative Play left off the list giving it the unofficial title of ‘the missing Play Type’.
This may have come about in part because the concept has a ‘difficult to believe’ element to it which has led to this Play Type being rejected by many. Plus, there seems to be general confusion over how to actually cater for it. Personally, Hughes felt troubled by this confusion and rejection of the idea believing that this Play Type was the most significant one of all because of its evolutionary roots and potential as a survival tool across the generations. He also felt that this one Play Type was at the root of many of the others (personal correspondence).
In his 2006 book, ‘Play Types: speculations and possibilities’, Hughes concluded that, “… recapitulation could be a vital component of the human evolutionary process and may have been so for millions of years. In other words, recapitulation is an evolutionary imperative that is rooted in natural selection, in the avoidance of extinction pressures and in our very continued existence as a species.” (p.50)
The origins behind Recapitulative Play, as defined by Hughes, is in the post 1865 evolutionary ideas being applied to early biological explanations for play. It was believed by many of these early play theorists that previous evolutionary phases of human evolution were reflected in the play of children. Quite how this worked was not understood but a modern interpretation of this would be of ‘biological behaviour passed down through the genes’.
Hughes says, “… what children are doing when they play might be a recap of aspects of our collective evolutionary history.” (p.51)
So, the move of mammals from the seas onto land would be represented in a period of crawling, the move from the grass plains into the trees would be represented in the desire to climb and swing, a growing sense of cooperation and community would be reflected in the need to light and huddle around the fire, and the change from hunter gathering to settled communities reflected in shelter building.
However, there is a major problem with this interpretation as there both was and is a serious lack of empirical evidence to support it. Modern genetic research shows very clearly that information in the genes is not transmitted through the generations in this way and these early biological views on the recapitulated transmission of behaviour in general have been thoroughly scientifically debunked.
This means that the idea of Recapitulation Play as originally presented contains a fatal flaw.
However, there is an alternative explanation for the general idea that does have supporting evidence for it and comes from a non-biological field of study. That is the transmission of behaviours through the generations not via biological genes but through memes, in other words transmission through folk memories and ideas.
What Hughes appears to have accidentally done in describing Recapitulative Play is combined the biological/gene view of recapitulation (which is not well supported) with the anthropological/folkloric/meme view (which is well supported) but placed a disproportionate amount of emphasis on the former.
If the gene-based interpretation is completely replaced by the meme-based approach, the idea of Recapitulative Play makes perfect sense. In fact, when Recapitulative Play is listed among the other Play Types, it is often accompanied by meme-based examples rather than gene-based ones simply because they are more believable and make more sense.
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See also Bob Hughes, The Play Types, Folklore, Childlore, Playlore
